A Monmouth County Department of Public Works employee cleans up debris Friday in the Jersey shore town of Spring Lake. / Gannett NJ PHOTO/MARK R. SULLIVAN

Written by

Jean Mikle

and Todd B. Bates

New Jersey has established the Hurricane Sandy New Jersey Relief Fund. Donations can be sent to: P.O. Box 95, Mendham NJ 07945-0095. Donors also can go online to www.SandyNJReliefFund.org.

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SEASIDE PARK — Jim Purpuri is adamant. He’s staying.

Purpuri’s resolve was unchanged, even after he and son Ryan, 27, found themselves in chest-deep, debris-filled water as superstorm Sandy raged about their home. They fled to the relative safety of a neighbor’s slightly higher house.

Sandy struck just a day after Purpuri put the finishing touches on renovations from last year’s Tropical Storm Irene. That storm coated the house’s first floor with 12 inches of salty water. He replaced his appliances, redid the sheetrock and siding, and repaired the wooden floors.

All that work is ruined now, after Sandy shoved five feet of water into his bayfront home here in Ocean County. Purpuri, 60, has lived in the house for 45 years — and says he’ll fix it once again.

“I’ll definitely rebuild again,” Purpuri said, standing outside the Toms River home where he’s been staying. “I’ll try to make it better. I’ll try to outfox it. What I get to look at every day, I wouldn’t give that up.”

Many others at the Jersey shore feel the same way. Everyone from flooded-out residents to the mayors of the area’s hardest-hit towns have vowed to rebuild. And that includes the governor, a self-professed fan of the state’s coastal communities.

“As a kid who was born and raised in this state and who spent a lot of time over my life, both my childhood and my adult life, at the Jersey shore, we’ll rebuild it,” Gov. Chris Christie said Tuesday, a day after the storm pummeled the state with horrifying strength. “No question in my mind we’ll rebuild it.”

But some coastal experts believe now is the time state and local officials should have a real conversation with residents about how the area should be rebuilt, and whether the state should consider restricting construction on some sections of the coast.

“I think it’s time for the state to take some action in terms of limiting the development, the exposure of people and investment at the coast,” said Norbert P. Psuty, a longtime coastal expert and professor emeritus at Rutgers University’s Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences. “I’m hoping that they will see that some places are just too vulnerable. There should be some kind of support to assist people in kind of vacating vulnerable areas.”

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Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University, and a longtime participant in the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said: “A lot of New Jersey’s coastline is developed with absolutely no seeming recognition of the risks involved and the cost. This isn’t the last big storm we’re going to have, and the world as it warms is likely to have more intense hurricanes.”

Untold costs

To rebuild the Jersey shore, particularly its battered beaches, is likely to cost billions of dollars and require significant help from the federal government.

Multimillion-dollar beach replenishment projects have been ongoing on the New Jersey coast since the mid-1990s, with the Army Corps of Engineers pumping tons of sand onto beaches all along the shoreline in partnership with the state Department of Environmental Protection and local municipalities.

In some cases, oceanfront homeowners have fought the replenishment projects, claiming newly created dunes blocked their views and lowered property values.

Long Beach Township Mayor Joseph Mancini estimated it would take $200 million to fix the beaches on Long Beach Island, with the overall bill to fix storm damage at about $700 million.

“We have a long way to go,” he said, “but I’m confident that this island will be back.”

But Mancini’s projected costs are just for one barrier island. There is no cost estimate for fixing the beaches from Island Beach State Park to Sandy Hook, or the Bayshore.

Point Pleasant Beach Mayor Vincent Barella also vowed his borough would be repaired, expressing hope the new boardwalk could be in place by Memorial Day.

“We’re going to need financial help to rebuild, federal and state, but we’re going to get it done,” Barella said.

Sea Bright Mayor Dina Long expressed the same confidence Thursday, even while telling a roomful of residents they would not be able to return to their devastated town for another week to 10 days because underground gas mains were broken in several places. An emotional Long vowed “we are going to rebuild our town,” and promised residents a better Sea Bright.

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Limits urged

Jeff Tittel, director of the Sierra Club’s New Jersey chapter, said not all parts of the shore should be rebuilt.

“There are parts of the shore we can rebuild, but we need to do it right,” and we may need to avoid rebuilding in other areas, he said.

“We can’t afford to keep rebuilding the same house every few years, so we’re gonna have to make some tough decisions,” Tittel said. “This has been a disaster, but policies have made it worse, and unfortunately, we’re going to see more in the future unless we start to change how we build and do things.”

Toms River Mayor Thomas F. Kelaher noted his township’s beaches “are an asset to the town, and provide enjoyment for millions of people.”

Kelaher wondered, though, how long it will take to rebuild the township’s devastated Ortley Beach section, and whether the state will allow all the homes there to be replaced.

“They may have trouble rebuilding in some areas,” Kelaher said. “We don’t know whether the DEP, the (Environmental Protection Agency) or any of those people are going to permit it.”

David A. Robinson, the state’s climatologist at Rutgers University, expects a herculean effort to rebuild along the coast because New Jersey’s beaches and boardwalks are so central to its multibillion-dollar tourism industry.

“We’re not going to stop rebuilding along the coast anytime soon,” he said.

“If people rebuild, they have to rebuild with the understanding that this is likely to happen again. Is it going to happen again next year? Is it going to happen again in 50 to 60 years? We don’t know,” Robinson said.

20 years by
the water

Experts may question whether homeowners should rebuild, but in Paula Harrigfeld’s mind, there is no doubt.

The house she owns with her husband, Frederick, has been standing since 1933, perched on Bayshore Drive in Toms River, across the road from Barnegat Bay.

Last Monday, the bay swept through its wide front windows, swamping the house with more than three feet of water and forcing the family to flee upstairs.

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On Thursday, the couple and their children, James, 18, and twins Katie and Shane, 13, stood amid a pile of their soaked belongings on the home’s muddy front lawn. A dirt-encrusted crock pot sat next to pile of muddy cables and a blue couch with matching chair. James Harrigfeld, a student at Ocean County College, lost his Ford Focus, his college books, and notes from his classes when the car was swamped.

But the family isn’t thinking of leaving. Not even as they yanked mud-spattered wallboard off their walls and tried to sop up muddy water from the home’s wooden floors.

Not even when they recalled the fear of watching the rising water from their perch on the second floor of the house, where they were trapped from last Monday night until 3 p.m. Tuesday, when they were rescued by a bucket truck that plucked them from the second floor.

“I am absolutely staying,” Paula Harrigfeld said. She and her husband have lived in the house for nearly 20 years. “I love the neighborhood. My whole family is here. We would not ever leave.”

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